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    The flag of the Confederacy rose and fell in only four years.  It arose over a prosperous, peaceful nation whose mothers sent their husbands and sons to die, if need be, under its folds.  And die they did, from the plains of Manassas to the fields of Pennsylvania, from Shiloh to Nashville, from the Wilderness to Appomattox.

     The flag the Confederacy adopted as its National Standard on March 4, 1861 was first raised on Capitol Hill in Montgomery, Alabama.  The honorable Jefferson Davis, ex-U.S. Secretary of War and new president of the Confederacy, invited Letitia Christian Tyler to raise the first official flag of the new Confederacy.   Miss Tyler had been born in the White House, the capitol of the United States.  She was the granddaughter of ex-U.S. President John Tyler.  The seven star flag Miss Tyler raised that day has come to be known as the First National Confederate flag, or the Stars and Bars.  The circle of seven stars in the canton represented the seven Southern States that had seceded up until that time: South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas.  Lincoln’s illegal demand that the Southern States aid in subjugating her sister states forced another six states to secede.  Virginia on April 17th, Arkansas, May 6th, Tennessee, May 7th, North Carolina, May 20th, Missouri, August 5th, and Kentucky on November 5th.  A star was added to the flag for each new state that joined the Southern Confederacy.

     The Confederate First National Flag shown here bears nine appliquéd stars on each side.  This nine star pattern allows us to date its time of manufacture rather specifically.  The ninth state to secede was Arkansas on May 6, 1861.  Tennessee followed on May 7th, and North Carolina, May 20, 1861 which dates the flag to the period between May 6^th when Arkansas seceded and May 20, 1861 when North Carolina seceded.

     The flag measures twenty-six and three quarters on the fly, by fourteen inches on the hoist.  The framed size is 21X34.  The canton and field were woven with a cotton warp and a woolen weft using the same bunting used in the manufacture of battle flags.  The stars are made of finely woven cotton.  The flag has a heavy canvas hoist with ties at top and bottom.  The ties are made of bast, derived from hemp.

     Usually it is indeterminate whether these small First Nationals were patriotic flags or field flags, however in the case of this flag, materials used in its construction, i.e. the bunting, the strong, coarse bast ties and the heavy canvas hoist leave no doubt that it was a field flag.  Its use, whether guidon or to mark a camp headquarters, cannot be determined.

     The flag remained in obscurity until August of 2007 when it was brought into the Richmond Civil War Show for identification.

     The flag has had microscopic examination of construction methods as well as full fiber and dye analysis to definitively date the flag to the War Between the States era and comes with a full examination report.  It has been mounted to unbleached cotton muslin over archival board and framed behind ultra violet protective plexiglas.  It needs no further conservation and is ready to display. 

     Due to the difficulty of taking photographs of items behind glass, the photograph of the framed flag shows non-existent glare.